Hi All, Iím hoping to order my QB wings and fuselage soon and wondered what if any extras I need. So a couple of questions:
Iíve got the Strobe kit for the Empennage so I was going with the strobe kit for wings ($800), but is there a better option out there anywhere.

Also how many hours work is thought to be required to finish off the QB kits?

Do I need to order the finishing kit at the same time or will it be months or gulp, years before thatís needed?

Be aware that the oil cooler mount VA-186 is NOT included in the QB kit but needs to be attached to the firewall prior to the engine mount...so order it.

In this same vein, the 4" SCAT Flange, VA-187, is NOT included with the Baffle Kit...so order it.

As far as strobes go, I think most people are leaning toward the LED option, for example AeroLED, Aveo, or FlyLED options.

Also, you are probably going to want the plane around third latch for the doors.

You will need to decide if you will be insulating the firewall and whether or not you plan on an overhead console.

If you plan on having Cold Air Induction on your engine, the engine mount will need to be modified slightly.

You also need to consider the seat upholstery. If you plan on having it done locally or if you will be using, for example, Oregon Aero or Flightline. I mention this because if they ship the seats directly to you, you will need to ship them to the upholstery company...and the box is rather large and heavy.

Anyway, I think you will find this still a ton of work to do even with the QB kits.

Oh, don't forget, you need to go through just about every page of the plans and verify that each task was completed correctly on the QB kit. You may find that some tasks either weren't completed or they were completed improperly. Personally, I had several minor mistakes in my QB fuselage...they were discovered while verifying the QB build.

I found that ordering both was good because I would switch back and forth. I would build easy tasks when you did not want to study hard to build. And we built a lot further in the build before we joined the cone to the fuselage. Might not be the best but it made it easy to stand up and work in the cone and back side of fuselage. Also since you are in England The shipping time would be long and maybe you can get a brake on cost if they shipped together.

I can't speak to QB construction times. In either case, there is a lot of variation in build times. This is surely due to differences in skill, experience, available tools and space, extent of any priming and/or painting, extent of deburring, professional or self-completed wiring/panel, as well is time tracking methodology.

For example, it took me 611 hours to complete my SB wings. In my case, it was my first kit so a significant amount of that time probably represents a lot of learning on my part, however others have reported as few as 285 hours. You can find a fewolderthreads on the topic of RV-14 build times.

A little more about build times...

I videoed nearly my entire build (representative images from that camera, in my original and final shops, are below) so I have an extremely accurate in-shop time accounting. However time spent studying the plans, online resource consultations, phone calls, etc. were not accounted for. And, how does one account for the time someone is helping you? Do you double-count those hours?

I decided to log separately the time that other people helped me. In my case, I had 599 hours of help from other people. But I didn't apply those hours to any one specific category (wings, fuselage, etc.) primarily because, in many cases, my helper and I were working on different things and I wasn't interested in itemizing out those hours so precisely. So when asked, I state that it took me 2,196 hours with an additional 599 hours of help to go from first kit to airworthiness inspection.

When considering quoted build times, realize that there are a lot of variables to explain the variability.

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Pics from my camera that I used to video my entire build. The first pic is when I was building only in a basement. The second was when it outgrew that shop and moved to a garage. it's really neat to compress the ~2,200 hour video into a minute to see an airplane appear out of nowhere.

1. Beringer wheels and brakes
2. Fuel, brake, and FWF lines/hoses from TS Flightlines (I also ordered Beringer supplies through Tom)
3. Steinair panel build (planned this all along and ordered fuselage harness from them terminated with dsub connectors).
4. All the lighting options from Vans
5. Vans "Power module" kit - moves the fuse/breaker panel from a vertical surface to a slanted one
6. Thunderbolt engine

For wiring, you'll get a lot of opinions. I considered doing all my own wiring but just wanted to save some time and went with the pre-built harness. Knowing what I know now, I might have installed it sooner, but with a quickbuild fuselage, not so important. I would consider installing it before you install fuel/brake lines and fuel pump - getting the wires from the tunnel out to the control stick bases was a royal pain - working around the fuel lines made it even more so.

Re finish kit - I'd give yourself at least six months to do the work needed on both QB kits (not to mention empennage if that's not built yet) but plan on waiting about 2 months after deliver. I had some confusion with Partain about shipping and ended up sitting on my hands for about a month waiting for finish kit to arrive.

Just my opinion, but I have found it useful to have several things available to work on while I wait on some random tool or bit of hardware. It seems I am always ordering something from Spruce or Cleaveland. And speaking of tools . . . I long ago learned you don't have to own every tool if you have a buddy who owns something you need to borrow. If you don't have a like-minded buddy nearby, however, you will find you need a lot of miscellaneous tools you probably wouldn't otherwise own (e.g., a tool to crimp on RG-400 coax fittings, a 100 degree flaring tool, etc., etc.). Having other pieces of the project available to work on will keep you from sitting around while waiting for the delivery van.

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